How to Bind DataTable to DataGrid in Xamarin

As many of you know, .NET Standard 2.0 introduced support for DataSet and DataTable. With that, we got overwhelming demand for support to bind DataTable to the Xamarin.Forms DataGrid. We are happy to announce that this feature is available with our 2019 Volume 3 – Beta release.

In this blog, I am going to walk you through how to bind the DataTable class to the Xamarin.Forms DataGrid control.

Data binding

Let’s create a simple data table with Order details data. You won’t need any additional stuff for binding, just create the data table and assign it directly to DataGrid’s ItemsSource property. You can also bind the data table from the data set.

ViewModel creation

Create a view model class in the Xamarin project similar to the one in the following code example

public class ViewModel
{
    public ViewModel()
    {
        DataTableCollection = GetDataTable();
    }
    public DataTable DataTableCollection { get; set; }

    private DataTable GetDataTable()
    {
        DataTable dataTable = new DataTable();
        dataTable.Columns.Add("Order ID", typeof(double));
        dataTable.Columns.Add("Customer Name", typeof(string));
        dataTable.Columns.Add("Customer ID", typeof(string));
        dataTable.Columns.Add("Country", typeof(string));
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1001, "Maria Anders", "ALFKI", "Germany");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1002, "Ana Trujilo", "ANATR", "Mexico");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1003, "Antonio Moreno","ENDGY", "Mexico");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1004, "Thomas Hardy", "ANTON", "UK");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1005, "Christina Berglund", "BERGS", "Sweden");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1006, "Hanna Moos", "BLAUS", "Germany");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1007, "Frederique Citeaux", "BLONP", "France");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1008, "Martin Sommer", "BOLID", "Spain");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1009, "Laurence Lebihan", "BONAP", "France");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1010, "Kathryn", "BOTTM", "Canada");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1011, "Tamer", "XDKLF", "UK");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1012, "Martin", "QEUDJ", "US");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1013, "Nancy", "ALOPS", "France");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1014, "Janet", "KSDIO", "Canada");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1015, "Dodsworth", "AWSDE", "Canada");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1016, "Buchanan", "CDFKL", "Germany");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1017, "Therasa", "WSCJD", "Canada");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1018, "Margaret", "PLSKD", "UK");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1019, "Anto", "CCDSE", "Sweden");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1020, "Edward", "EWUJG", "Germany");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1021, "Anne", "AWSDK", "US");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1022, "Callahan", "ODKLF", "UK");
        dataTable.Rows.Add(1023, "Vinet", "OEDKL", "France"); 
        return dataTable;
    }
}

Binding ItemsSource in XAML

In the main page, add the necessary XML namespace to use SfDataGrid control, set the BindingContext of the page to the ViewModel class, and bind the ItemSource of SfDataGrid with the DataTableCollection.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms" 
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml" 
             xmlns:local="clr-namespace:DataGridDemo;assembly=DataGridDemo"  
             xmlns:syncfusion="clr-namespace:Syncfusion.SfDataGrid.XForms;assembly=Syncfusion.SfDataGrid.XForms" 
             x:Class="DataGridDemo.Sample">
<ContentPage.BindingContext>
        <local:ViewModel x:Name="ViewModel"/>
</ContentPage.BindingContext>

<ContentPage.Content>
    <syncfusion:SfDataGrid x:Name="dataGrid"
                           ItemsSource="{Binding DataTableCollection}">
    </syncfusion:SfDataGrid>
</ContentPage.Content>
</ContentPage>

DataTable binding in Xamarin Data Grid

CRUD operations

DataGrid automatically refreshes the UI whenever we add, delete or modify the rows of the underlying DataTable collection.

Data operations

DataGrid supports various data operations to represent the data in it. The following are supported by default:

• Sorting (including multicolumn sorting)
• Grouping (including multicolumn grouping)
• Filtering
• Summaries

Sorting

You can sort columns with the various built-in options such as multicolumn sorting and tri-state sorting. But custom sorting is not supported.

In the following screenshot, the data grid is sorted in ascending order with respect to the Customer Name column.

Data Grid sorted ascending with respect to the Customer Name

Grouping

The data can be organized in a hierarchical structure based on matching field values. Multigrouping and custom grouping are also supported.

Data grouped with respect to Country in Data Grid

Filtering

DataGrid’s built-in View.Filtering is not supported for the DataTable class. But, you can filter the records using DataTable’s DataView.RowFilter property.

In the following example, the DataView.RowFilter property is set as “[Country] = ‘Canada’”.

Row filter applied to the Data Grid

Summaries

All summary types supported by DataGrid are supported for DataTable, i.e. group summary, caption summary, and table summary.

Summaries displayed in the Data Grid

Other features

The support for all other features, such as stacked headers, row drag and drop, unbound column, and unbound row, of DataGrid are available. You can refer to the user guide to learn more about the DataGrid’s feature sets.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this quick walk-through of DataTable binding support in DataGrid. This support is available with our 2019 Volume 3 beta release, which you can download from here.

If you have any questions or require clarification about this feature, please let us know in the comments below. You can also contact us through our support forum, Direct-Trac, or our feedback portal. We are happy to assist you!